


Blazing Fury

by Zingenmir (DawnFire360)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Doctor Who (2005), Sarah Jane Adventures, The Flash (TV 2014), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Currently no references to Malcolm Merlyn, Currently unbetaed (albeit edited by the author); this may change, Jack and John are the main characters for this one; the others are mentioned but don't appear, rating is for some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22453468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnFire360/pseuds/Zingenmir
Summary: Blaze has gone off the rails. Captain Charisma wants to know why.Or, in a superhero AU, Jack Harkness wants to know what's up with his friend and superhero partner John Hart.
Relationships: Jack Harkness & John Hart
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Introduction/Setting

**Setting A/N:** Superhero AU of the DC variety, or at least a variation on a Superhero AU that was of the DC variety (read: DC canon doesn’t really play much of a role in this story, apart from powers possibly still coming from the characters being metahumans, but minor canon details from _Arrow_ and _The Flash_ played a role in the non-university students version of this AU, so the label has stuck). Blaze, Captain Charisma, and the rest of their teammates are all in their early twenties or close to it (not that anyone knows in the heroes’ case, thanks to the disguise technology embedded in their costumes. Their secret identities are kept in part due to the assumption that they’re at least ten years older). The team was begun in high school (or rather, in sixth form college, seeing as this is set in the UK), and took a year or two to get noticed (while training, taking on small crimes, and learning how to work together) and then become popular. Blaze and the Captain are the only ones out in public as superheroes; the existence of a team behind them is growing fairly obvious, but no team members have been introduced to the public.

The team consists of Jack Harkness, John Hart, Jenny (the Doctor’s daughter), Luke Smith (Sarah Jane’s son), Toshiko Sato, and Owen Harper. Rose and the Doctor are Jenny’s parents; Martha is a family friend. The team are officially interns/employees of Jenny and Luke’s attempt to start (with the Doctor’s support and funding) a branch of the business that’s likely mostly based on the R&D efforts of Luke and Tosh. Between various talents, powers, technology, familial trust, early consultation with PR, and a certain amount of luck, the team has both worked and become reasonably successful. Officially, none of the team’s family members know about their superheroic activities; unofficially, several of them have probably guessed or are at least suspicious. Jack’s younger brother is still in...either secondary school or sixth form college, depending on their age difference, and resents him for, among other things, having been popular and ‘perfect’ enough to cast a shadow. Jack is not particularly eager for him to find out he’s Captain Charisma.

_Smaller details:_

- **Costumes** : **Captain Charisma** wears a navy and black suit of strong, reinforced material, with a pattern somewhat inspired by a military uniform, black combat boots, and a dark domino mask. He also wears fingerless gloves in the same colors as the suit, reinforced at the knuckles. He carries a handgun, as well as a few smaller, more creative weapons and gadgets. Disguise technology lowers his voice, changes the shape of his jawline, darkens his hair, and turns his eyes an unnaturally vibrant blue. All in all, he looks (appropriately) like a classic comic book superhero.

(Fun fact: his first costume, at least in one version of this AU, was exercise clothing and a too-big motorcycle helmet.)

 **Blaze's** costume is very similar. In fact, the basic design is almost exactly the same: the same fabric and near-identical design and armoring, albeit customized to fit his body, theme, and fighting style. The costume is done in red, vibrant in the middle, shading to burgundy at the edges, and fading to black at the cuffs and waist. He also wears black combat boots and a domino mask; his mask is deep red with very dark edges that flare out to follow the line of his cheekbones (and emphasize their sharpness). He openly carries pistols, and possibly a katana or some other blade, as well as some more discreet gadgets. Like the Captain, he uses disguise technology for his face, voice, and hair. Whereas the Captain looks to have stepped out of a comic book (or a movie poster), Blaze appears downright unearthly. His eyes lighten to an uncanny ice blue, his jawline and cheekbones sharpen, and his hair changes from light brown to dark and curls tightly.

-Captain Charisma is a ridiculous name. Jack didn't choose it; he had something else in mind, but made the mistake of being charming before getting a chance to give it out, and thus got stuck with the media's (likely half-joking) choice. There is much ribbing about this. At least it's a good way to annoy villains: the original AU includes a story about the Captain refusing to even look at a villain trying to turn him without the villain using his full call sign every few sentences, and Blaze laughing himself breathless.

-Toshiko was bullied very badly in secondary school; Jack eventually managed to stop it, and insisted she was now his friend and he’d protect her. When the residual effects show up, he’s often the one she calls to calm her down or get her home.

-John is studying some combination of military history, strategy, and tactics (and the history of the latter two). It has a fancier name, which no one uses. Jack is studying anthropology and/or sociology, possibly minoring in music or theatre.

-Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper will likely show up in the future, but presumably went to different schools. Given this is set in England (London, probably), odds are they both did secondary school and sixth form college in Wales and haven’t left the country yet. I’m sure there’ll be an intersection at some point, though; maybe Jenny and Luke’s business will move to Cardiff, or Ianto will try his luck in London. Who knows?

-John Hart is on the team for a number of reasons: because it’s a mix of canons and times; because he and Jack are a fun duo to write; and because in an earlier version of this AU he and Jack had been on a team together in the future before the team erased Jack’s memories, Jack left and exposed them as much less pure than they’d been presented, and John, angry at being left with no warning or explanation (as Jack hadn’t made much effort to share his suspicions to begin with), declared himself Captain Charisma’s new nemesis. The situation resolved itself to a certain extent with a bit of time and contact between the two (meanwhile, Jack traveled briefly with an alien called the Doctor and got involved with a new, hand-picked team of heroes in the past), but Blaze remained the morally grey villain Captain Captivating rather than going back to being a hero who was rather bad at always setting a good example. With the shift to this university-superheroes-with-a-team AU, he stuck around and got tempered by being younger and surrounded by far better influences. He’s certainly a hero with a wild streak and some struggles, but he’s not close to his worst yet. Maybe this will change when he’s older, though without the Time Agency equivalent involved in his and Jack’s lives, who knows?

- **What the team members bring to the table (powers, abilities, resources):**

Jenny: money, fighting training (primarily martial arts, self-defense, possibly shooting); minor healing factor.

Luke: super-intelligence, which likely also translates into plans, tactics, situational analysis, and different types of useful ideas.

Tosh: tech genius, possibly with related powers.

Owen: healing powers and worried snarking.

Jack: good fighter (partially through training by Jenny), healing factor, eventually found to be able to come back from the dead.

John: good fighter, extra bone density (bit more durable than average), resistant to smoke and possibly fire as well to a certain extent.

 **Disclaimer:** all characters originally created, written, and portrayed by, well, a large number of different people working for the BBC in connection with the BBC-owned shows _Doctor Who_ , _Torchwood_ _,_ and _The Sarah Jane Adventures_. Some setting ideas taken from DC comics/CW superhero shows (primarily _Arrow_ , _The Flash_ , and _Legends of Tomorrow_ ), though it’s less prevalent in this story. What I’ve done is write this story and develop the general situation and events (often by adapting canonical backstories/events to fit or translating them into the AU), the latter of which Iximaz helped with (minus the few changes for this particular story). Very, very, very loosely inspired by Copperbadge’s “The Justice League Of Cardiff Is A Stupid Name” ( [ https://archiveofourown.org/works/908153 ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/908153) ), mostly the ending A/N which may have combined with the CW shows to spark the AU idea to begin with. The name “Captain Charisma” may possibly have come from black.k.kat’s “Pragmatic Villainy vs Captain Superhero: A Study” ( [ https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8801249/1/ ](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8801249/1/Pragmatic-Villainy-vs-Captain-Superhero-A-Study) ), insofar as there’s a chance I saw the summary and A/N (i.e., the bits before the cut on Livejournal) before this AU came about. Pretty much everything else is different in both cases, though, bar Jack wearing a domino mask (which is a pretty common superhero costume choice anyway). Still, credit where it’s due, and both stories are amusing reads. Do mind the ratings, although if you can watch _Torchwood_ , you can read both.

Story is currently unbetaed; if you spot anything that looks a bit odd, feel free to let me know.

And that is more than enough introduction, I hope. On to the story!


	2. Blazing Fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in ending A/N. For setting notes, etc, please see previous chapter.
> 
> For the curious: yes, the story is longer than the introduction. By about a page. On the plus side, if I ever write prequel or sequel stories, I'll already have the setting notes written out!

Blaze had always tended toward being a loose cannon, but this was taking it too far.

It was ten in the evening. The Captain had last seen him at six-thirty.

In those three and a half hours, as it turned out, Blaze had managed to fight his way through three bars, destroy a statue, knock out a villain, and reduce a small gang to tears. Incredibly, this last had been done with only the use of his words.

“And _that_ ,” he said harshly as the Captain came into earshot, “is why each and every single _bloody_ one of you is nothing less than pure—rotten— _scum_. Got that?”

The tallest gang member sniffled. The Captain cleared his throat.

Blaze turned around with his usual grace, pivoting easily in the combat boots that matched his black suit for red accents. “Oh, look who finally decided to turn up! The great Captain Charisma’s managed to track me down! Should I applaud?”

The Captain blinked at him, confused and hoping his mask didn’t let much of it show. “So you _are_ upset with me, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Blaze scoffed. His ice blue eyes bore into the Captain’s darker ones as though they could do actual harm. “Why would I be upset with _you_?”

“Well, that’s why I’m asking,” the Captain said, quite reasonably, he thought. He moved closer, hoping to draw Blaze away a bit so their audience could stop being one and go away. “It’s kind of a mixed message when you tell me you aren’t angry, it’s nothing to do with me, and you’re going for a walk...and then it turns out you use ‘walk’ as a code word for ‘rampage’ no _ooow_!” His breath rushed out of him with a huff as Blaze took advantage of their proximity to grab him by the costume (possibly a design flaw, actually, he should talk to the team) and slam his back against the closest wall. “Hey!” he choked out.

“Shut. Up,” Blaze growled. Behind him, the gang members were beginning to sneak away. “You think you can just run your mouth whenever you feel like it, is that it? The great Captain Charisma can get away with any sodding thing now? Is that how the world works?”

The Captain stared at him.

“Well?” Blaze demanded after half a minute of expectant silence, and shook him. “Come on! Tell me!”

“You said to shut up,” the Captain reminded him. The gang members reached the mouth of the alleyway and made a run for it.

“Shut up about me and talk about you,” Blaze snarled. He sounded almost inhuman, to the Captain’s consternation. “You get away with anything? Is that how this works? You can do whatever you like and never worry?”

The Captain went back to staring. “Blaze—man, what the hell.”

Blaze pushed closer, glaring. “You’re saying that to _me_?”

“ _Yeah_ , I’m saying it to you!” The Captain shoved him away; it turned into a short scuffle that ended with him mashed less comfortably against the wall. “Augh! Come on, Blaze, that’s gonna bruise!”

“Yeah, for a day and a half!” Blaze retorted. “You don’t suffer a single bloody consequence, _Captain_!”

“Are you _insane_?” The Captain heaved and managed to throw his partner off, even getting a few steps away from the wall before the shorter superhero was approaching again. “You’ve seen the consequences! You know I get hurt! We’ve helped _each other_ through all this, you—”

“Yeah, well, help me through your fucking death, then, because I don’t see it!” Blaze yelled. He shoved the Captain back, glaring. “ _Nothing_ fucking _sticks to you!_ ”

“Like you’d want it to!” The Captain pushed him in return, putting temporary space between them. “What is your _problem_?”

“You!” Blaze turned abruptly and threw himself against the wall. He gasped through his next two breaths, then spoke again. “You fucking _died_ , J—you _died_! You’re walking around! You’re completely fine! How the _hell_ am I supposed to pretend I’m okay with that?”

And _now_ , for a welcome change, the pieces fell into place. “How about you don’t, in private?” Jack suggested. He went to lean less violently on the wall beside John, pressing their shoulders together. “We’ve got to keep it up for the public, yeah, all the public, but it isn’t like I’m not freaked out too. I think we all are, really.” He glanced around, even ran a quick scan, but spotted no people or microphones in the vicinity. He lowered his voice slightly anyway. “Tosh has been texting me to check in a lot more than usual, you know, and Luke says Jenny’s been training a lot. And _he_ outright said he’s freaked out. We had a whole awkward chat about it.”

John’s disguised gaze landed on the bricks of the opposite wall and fixed itself there. “Oh, did you? Well, what about Owen, then? You’ve gone through everyone but him; what’s he been doing?”

Jack groaned and tipped his head back against the wall. “You mean you _haven’t_ spotted him insisting on healing every single scratch I get the moment I get in? I’ve never seen him mother-henning before. I guess I should probably be touched, but seriously, John, I wish he’d stop or do something else. It’s...weird, and getting kind of annoying.”

John snorted. “You deserve some annoying.”

“Because I scared you?” Jack asked tentatively.

John rolled his eyes and turned his head to look at him. “Ooh, you’ve just earned yourself a gold star. What’ll you do with it?”

“I know I scared everyone on the team,” Jack said, rather than give a silly answer. “I know I scared you. I know I scared everyone who’s invested in Captain Charisma, even if they don’t know I actually...died. John, I scared _myself_. I had no idea I could do that. I thought I just had the healing factor.”

“So, what, we should—start hugging all the time?” John scoffed. Jack wished his mask was off: he would have been easier to read, even with Tosh and Luke’s disguise tech still activated. “Sounds super useful.”

“We _could_ , I guess,” Jack said sceptically. “If it’d help. You hang all over me anyway, though.”

“Do not,” John said half-heartedly. “Look, just—what the hell are we supposed to do? There isn’t exactly a sodding support group for this, and we’re not really telling people what happened to begin with, are we? Can’t exactly go to a therapist or whatever.”

“We could...frame it as a health scare?” Jack suggested with a sigh. “Look, I don’t know. I _really_ don’t. Maybe we could try to talk through it together a bit more, though? Have a…” His lips twitched. “We could do a sharing circle, or something, like those team-building exercises—”

“I brought those in as a _joke_ ,” John reminded him, snorting. “Just wanted to get everyone doing stupid things, if I could. And I did.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said, and bumped their shoulders together.

“Now who’s handing out bruises?”

“Shut up, you’re not _that_ delicate,” Jack said, grinning. After a moment, John smiled briefly back. “That’s more like it. Look, we didn’t have much to share about before, did we? Now we’ve...it’s...I mean, this wasn’t fun.”

“It ‘wasn’t fun’, he says,” John scoffed. “Yeah, real accurate, Jack, you tell it like it is—”

“It was a crisis, it sucked, and we need to get through it properly,” Jack said loudly. “Okay? I’m going to bring it up next time we get together with some time to spare. We can’t keep going like this: no one’s working through it quickly, I don’t think, and if that gets into our heads in the field…”

“That’d be bad,” John said, straightening. Abruptly, he’d turned serious. “Alright. Bring it up. Maybe it’ll help, or something like it will.”

Jack nodded, and stepped away from the wall, turning so they were face to face. “Next time. I promise. Can we get out of here now? I think we could actually get half the project done tonight if we just get through the library book and the third article first.”

John sighed. “Urgh, homework.” He pushed off the wall, and comfortably into Jack’s space. “Fine. We’ll do the bloody project. I’m getting crisps on the way back to the dorms, though.”

“Definitely not objecting,” Jack said, and pulled him into a hug.

John grumbled for a few seconds before hugging him back; soon enough, he pulled away again. “Let’s go.”

Jack nodded agreement, and then they were off, heading back to the road.

John watched the shadows for suspicious movement until they were out of costume and loaded down with crisps, blocks away from the university dormitories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for discussion of unexpected but canon-typical temporary character death (of the Harkness variety) and attempts to come to terms with it (not hugely detailed) Also, friends physically scuffling and arguing.
> 
> A brief note on the swearing: it's heavier than I'd normally write, but...it fit in context, especially given the characters. Any future stories in this series will likely use milder language, apart from if I wind up writing how they found out Jack could come back to life to begin with (which, again, would be a pretty deserving context for strong language).
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave a comment, or constructive criticism--I'm not British, and this is unbetaed at the time of posting, so while I have looked it over several times, it's entirely possible I've missed something. (Mind you, I don't think there's much to Brit-pick to begin with, especially since I haven't gone for British spelling in the story or even particularly British speech patterns for Jack since he hasn't spent his entire life there.) If you spot anything and want to let me know about it, please feel free.
> 
> (ETA: As of 31/1/2020, some Brit-picking has been done. Primarily because, oh yeah, high school is actually secondary school+sixth form college in the UK. Whoops. Most of what I've previously written set in the UK with school age characters has involved them going to Hogwarts, so while I did know the system there is different, I never fully picked up the details.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
